Rice Basketball couldn’t keep up with an explosive Tulsa offense, falling behind early during a New Year’s Eve loss to the Golden Hurricane.
Dreams of a Happy New Year’s Eve on the road for Rice basketball turned to nightmares in short order as the Owls were on the wrong end of a 10-0 start to open their game against Tulsa on Wednesday afternoon. The Owls missed their first five shots, falling behind from the first possession.
Rice would cut the deficit down to one on and 11-0 run, spurred by excellent shooting and timely free throws from Nick Anderson, who would go on to paced the team with 17 points on the afternoon. Rice would never lead, though. Tulsa volleyed back, pulling out to a 13-point advantage at the halftime buzzer.
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The margin hovered around double-digits for much of the second half until a series of threes from Tulsa’s Jaylen Lawal put the game out of reach, for good. Up by 25 approaching the eight-minute media timeout, the Golden Hurricane would hang on for a comfortable win.
Rice Basketball falls to 6-8 with the loss. The Owls are 1-6 away from Tudor Fieldhouse this season.
Final Box | Tulsa 97, Rice 48
Key takeaway | Stars Silenced
Tulsa entered this contest as the top shooting team in the American Conference. That the Owls would give up points to the Golden Hurricane shouldn’t be that surprising. Rather, their inability to mount an effective counterpunch is the more concerning component of this loss.
The emergence of Cam Carroll and the reliability of Nick Anderson have gone a long way to buttress a Rice offense that has been inconsistent this season. But those two alone can’t support a balanced attack than can challenge the likes of Tulsa.
Veterans Trae Broadnax and Jalen Smith combined for 12 points on 4-for-16 shooting with eight boards. It would be decidedly unfair to saddle them with the blame for this defeat, however, it’s hard to envision Rice basketball winning many games in American Conference play if those two are barely going to crack double digits together.
Up Next: vs Memphis (Sat, Jan. 3 at 2:00 pm)
